Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Glynn Lunney

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[edit] Glynn Lunney

Self-nomination. This article reached GA status at the beginning of September; it has been significantly expanded since then. It has been through a peer review by the Biography WikiProject, and I have taken all of the suggestions made there. MLilburne 10:47, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

• Support This is an excellent article. It's a good read with a sensible structure, there are many public-domain pictures that illustrate important events in Lunney's career, and it's definitely well-referenced in terms of both quality and quantity of sources. I made a few minor grammatical changes, but nothing that would have kept me from supporting this candidate had these slight problems still existed. -- Kicking222 15:53, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
• Support very well done. Rlevse 16:34, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
• Pending Support: An obviously important person who deserves a full article, but I have some concerns that I feel stand between what is at present and what should be. I never quite get a sense of the summary conclusion that would leave a reader with a full sense of the historical importance of the man. Additionally, here are some generally minor problems that should be addressed:
  1. Nasa career: There is a tiny paragraph that seems to be floating. The text says that Lunney's "first job" was measuring reentry profiles, but we have to assume that this was his first job at NASA? Was NASA even organized at that point? How did he join the agency? This is before "Mercury" and "Gemini," which make more sense, so we need some additional material to explain this brief bit. E.g. "Lunney's first job out of college was for X (USAF? the newly designated NASA? we learn later that it's NACA? what?), where he worked studying the problem of reentry heating...."
  2. Gemini: It's interesting that he chose black as the team color, but is it pertinent? If we don't get the context for this decision and significance, it's probably extranneous information.
  3. Apollo: the article says that he was in charge of the boilerplate tests at White Sands. Would that make him involved in the "plugs out" test that was a disaster for Apollo 1? One way or another, the Apollo 1 tragedy had to have had an effect on his career, so that's sort of a gap.
  4. Apollo: "His Black team" is a bit chummy and informal, as well as grammatically incorrect (either Black Team or black-team or "black team"); it's probably best just to say "his team of X."
  5. Space Shuttle: "tasked with": I don't want to meddle, but "tasked with" is pretty gauche to my ears. Can't we use one of the many alternatives?
  6. Personal life: Big, big tense shift. I had to look up at the top of the lead again to make sure Lunney wasn't dead, as he was now in the past tense with his pleasures, for example.
• Again, though, in the end, I wish that a conclusion gave me more conclusions to take with me about the man and his career. Geogre 17:22, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

1. I will merge the "early life" and "NACA career" sections so as to make the structure more self-explanatory.
2. He was not involved in the Apollo 1 plugs-out test, and as far as I can tell wasn't around Mission Control at the time. In fact, there isn't very much information available about Lunney and the fire, so I didn't discuss it. I could provide a paragraph, but it would be a largely negative one, with only a couple of short quotes. Would you like me to see what I can put together? Actually, I see how I can work it in. Stand by.
3. Some readers may remember from the Apollo 13 movie that Gene Kranz's team was the White team, which in fact has its own Wikipedia article. (A very bad one, to be sure.) It may be trivia; I thought it was interesting trivia, but will take it out if you feel it's particularly problematic.
4. Fair point. It's not all that relevant. I've taken it out.
5. Changed this.
6. Have tried to shift this more into the present tense. Does it look better now?

Finally, yes, I would like to be able to draw more conclusions about the historical importance of Glynn Lunney. Unfortunately I'm limited to what the secondary sources have said (and I've studied them pretty thoroughly), so I don't want to go introducing any editorializing into the article. Some of the lack of long-term perspective is probably due to the fact that this is very recent history and he is still living. I hope you understand. MLilburne 17:53, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

• Folded reply: I understand, of course, about the need to remain within citable conclusions, but I worry that we're so compelled now to stick to them that we neglect our function as critical synthesis. An encyclopedist does get to synthesize and draw some conclusions based on facts that have been or can be carefully cited. For example, and this is not a suggestion, one could easily conclude that Glynn Lunney is one of the driving forces behind the development of NASA's manned space flight program, from its inception to the Space Shuttle. Such a conclusion locates the man in the world, gives the reader some capsule to walk off with, and is pretty inarguable. At any rate, it was a perceived need. About #3: I'm sure you're right about the white team, but it seems like either we need a header or sentence setting up "Development of the black and white teams" to let us know that this was an important functional division within mission control (not just a name or a gaming clan, so to speak), or, if it's to be in passing, a simple "Lunney was responsible for the fact that his group would be called the Black Team within NASA's mission control," just so it doesn't give the appearance of a tossed in kitchen sink. If I have more to suggest, I'll do it on the talk page.

Thank you for elaborating. I take your point about the Black team reference, and will remove it, as I can see that it doesn't add all that much for the article. I also do see what you're getting at in terms of critical synthesis. The example that you used, although not a suggestion, does come fairly close to the truth. I will think about what sort of general summation I can offer to the reader. Any other comments that you have will, of course, be gratefully received. MLilburne 21:07, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I have tried to include a little more assessment of Lunney's importance in historical context. Let me know if this is what you were looking for. MLilburne 21:04, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

• Support: We are in an age of explorers, and yet we are paying as little attention to them as the first age did. Articles like this may help us avoid the problems contemporary scholars have with knowing anything about Cortes and Verazano. Geogre 19:43, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
• Support. Great article! I really enjoyed it and this does not happen to me very often!--Yannismarou 19:28, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
• Support. Definitely. A great example of an interesting, informative, and well-cited article about a notable, living person. Cla68 10:46, 18 November 2006 (UTC)